Michael Hibbard

Category: Religion

There is code embedded in our genes. Much of this is governed by mathematical constants, ratios and equations. Why?

We do not know.

The beauty of our sun is irrefutable–a star adrift amongst a multitude of other kindred stars, a family so impossibly large one cannot be special. The family is called the Main Sequence. And we have found, spiraling around these other kindred stars, there are alien planets, strange and beautiful in their own right. One can look at any planet, either within or beyond our Solar Family, and find beauty in it, something wonderful.

One of my favorite books, and one of the first I ever read, is The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury — the Martian genocide. The allegory was immediately apparent to me, but, as I grow older, I find new rabbit holes to explore philosophically each time I read it. I have always been fascinated with ancient cultures, even fictitious ones. The strange, yet alluring, appeal to the Martian culture, for me, was its foundation in humility. History does not make a philosophy real — meaningful thoughts create the future of any philosophy. All we need do is not repeat the mistakes of the past, and history becomes irrelevant. The Martians as Bradbury created them were beautiful and admirable.

With spring here, we are often reminded of the beauty that exists in and beyond our world — despite the chaos and discontent depicted on the nightly news. Winter brings isolation, hibernation and introspection as we huddle beneath quilts, blankets and layers of clothes. Spring unleashes our creativity, with the palette of color splashed over our gardens, forests and parks. We take up our shovels and rakes to restore our yards to what we had before the cruel winter stripped it all away, leaving its mark as if to remind us that it will come again.

Now, you are probably wondering why I am mentioning all this. Why mention the Martians, beauty and our sun? The answer is as simple as the answer to the purpose of life. Life’s only purpose is the pure enjoyment of being.

There is a great deal of turmoil in our world, and it does not seem that there is an end in sight. It is not isolated to one region, people or country. It is a systemic problem that we continue to ignore. The Martian Chronicles is a quintessential lesson on how we as humans trod clumsily through our existence, scarcely aware of the problems we cause because we have not reached a deeper understanding of the nature of the universe or ourselves.

Life is a waking dream — we can mold it, enjoy it, and improve it– but first we must recognize we have the power within us. The purpose of my series The Waking Dream, is not only to entertain my readers, but also to plant that seed of suspended disbelief. Once we start to collectively understand that things can be better, we will crave for them to be better. This requires that we all get involved. And this has been my steadfast message.

For me, the Waking Dream is to create a culture much like the Bradbury’s Martians. A life full of philosophical discussion, creating beautiful things, and embracing the harmony that comes from a collective understanding, and engineering, of our reality. The easiest way to begin is to look skyward to the real master of our world, the Sun. Without its nurturing warmth, and tumultuous demeanor, our lives would be very different. But despite the dangers associated with being dependent on the sun, and its cyclical temper tantrums, it is nonetheless beautiful.

Our world is beautiful, yet, we were discontent to stay in the safety of its caves and caverns, so we have built temporary empires which will be long forgotten when we are no more. The sun and Earth will exist beyond our brief moment in history — billions of years beyond our comprehension. Each moment, each breath, each thought should be cherished. We learn from mistakes and move forward, ever pushed by the arrow of time.

At the beginning of this post I mentioned the code embedded in our genes that define our existence. This is only the operating system. We are all programmers with a keen, yet often overlooked, ability to write new code, new apps. These apps are not limited to our smart devices — “smart” being a grossly overstated term. We can reorder things by reprogramming the world around us — we do it all the time. Every time you move something from one side of the room to the other, you are reprogramming your environment, but this is only the most fundamental ability we have — overcoming gravity.

If we embrace the possibility that the universe is ours to mold, then we can explore new avenues of consciousness. We all have special abilities which we tend to ignore or keep to ourselves, for fear of being labeled negatively. We have a nasty habit of admonishing those who are different from the rest of the herd. This is an instinct we must learn to overcome. Are the things that interest you really things you enjoy, or do you do them because everyone else is? This is a flaw in our societal structure. We are individuals first, and community second. At the end of it all, you will leave this planet by yourself — how do you want to be remembered?

I’ve talked on many occasions about our inherent abilities, things we don’t talk about with a sense of earnestness — telepathy, empathy, telekinesis, communing with the dead. But why are these concepts so difficult for us to grasp as possible. Nothing is impossible, and we know this due to our exploration of the quantum world. However, some things are highly improbable. For instance, a single electron has the probability of being anywhere in the universe at a given moment — the probability never makes it to zero. They pop in and out of existence in ways we cannot understand. There are strange attractions between certain particles that allow them to communicate with one another instantaneously over limitless space, defying what we know about the speed of light. We have only just begun Kindergarten in the school of the universe.

The code in our genes is what allows us to operate on auto-pilot — breathing, protecting, foraging. It also tends to hinder us as we rely on our instincts as well as our social engineering to define us. Whenever I feel as if I am straying from the path I’ve set before myself, I look to the sun and ponder its existence. From a distance it is a perfect orb of glowing life, but up close it is a tempest of plasma and fire. The same can be said of our world. From a distance it is a shining jewel in the crown of the sun, but as we look beneath the clouds, we are a hurricane raging across the planet, unable to find peace in our existence. We are ever rushing forward to meet the future without taking time to enjoy the now.

We must look to the future, so that we can clear a path through existence. But we must ensure that we don’t forget to enjoy our being. The easiest way for one to do that is to step away from the computer, go outside and feel the warmth of the sun on our skin, smell the fragrance of life being renewed, and look within ourselves and ask, “Am I happy?” This question is the most difficult to explore.

Today the sun is shining, and it is a pleasant day. Despite being at work, I steal moments to stand outside and look to the sky. Summer is coming, the flowers are in bloom, and before we know it, we will be back in hibernation. But in the time we are active, we should explore new ways, within ourselves, to change the world around us. Things are not horrible, but they are not what we should want. We should collectively create a dream in which we all are happy, and each of us must strive to make it happen.

You are more than you think you are. We are all stars, we are all god, we are all beautiful. Be different, be yourself, be wonderful and the universe will reveal itself to you.

I wanted to talk about something that has become a bit of an obsession. I am one of those people who, if presented with a mystery, won’t stop until I’ve figured it out. So I’ve been researching a 30-year-old mystery that I myself witnessed back when I lived in the Philadelphia area — The Toynbee Tiles.

There have been many that have come before me about this particular mystery. Everyone has their own opinions, and it is time that I share some of my thoughts on the subject. There is a wonderful documentary called “Resurrect Dead – The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles” that was done a few years back. Using that documentary and my own independent research and thought exercises I think I have a pretty good idea about what is going on here. But first let me explain the mystery:

In the early 1980’s, tiles, like the one depicted above, started popping up all over Philadelphia. The tiles are embedded into the pavement through an ingenious method of using tar paper, asphalt glue, and linoleum. The persons placing these tiles, or Tilers, cut the messages meticulously out of linoleum, then they deploy them through various means. Tiles have been found in many cities all over the country and even in Argentina and Chile. The message is always the same:

Now let us dissect this message one line at a time as if it were a Nostradamus quatrain:

TOYNBEE IDEA

Arnold Toynbee was a British Historian & Philosopher. His autobiographical work, “Experiences” delves into his beliefs on god, religion and the universe. It seems that Toynbee’s idea comes from a series of passages in his discussion on the spirit:

Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. The dichotomy of a human being into ‘soul’ and ‘body’ is not a datum of experience. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body… Someone who accepts—as I myself do, taking it on trust—the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again; but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more ‘scientifically’ if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit.

Toynbee eludes to the fact that resurrection is possible, but did he really mean dead people or something else? This message is augmented by the story The Toynbee Convector by Ray Bradbury, the premise also being based on another Toynbee idea that we must always rush to meet the future in order to survive, which means, we must believe in a better world and create a better world. Life, after all, is a Waking Dream, as I’ve said on many occasions.

IN KUBRICK’S 2001

In Stanley Kubrick‘s magnum opus, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the story ultimately revolves around the cyclical nature of life and the cosmos. This movie still has profound effects on people seeing if for the first time. Even though it was done over 40 years ago, the message, the effects and the plot could easily be mistaken for a newer movie. It has truly endured the test of time. I believe that the Tilers had all seen this movie, and began to formulate their own beliefs on how we as a civilization can be resurrected. The movie is based on a short stories by Arthur C Clarke called “The Sentinel” and “Jupiter V”.

RESURRECT DEAD

This particular passage is not as obvious as one would think, but on the surface it is believed that the Tilers were trying to explain that all the dead on the planet could be resurrected…

ON PLANET JUPITER

This is also not as clear as it may seem. This could be seen as a direct reference to the movie 2001, which revolves around a mission to Jupiter. However, people as ingenious as the Tilers would know from the book adaptation of the movie, which came out right after the movie, has the mission going to Saturn and not to Jupiter. Kubrick’s special effects department could not model a believable Saturn with its rings, so they chose to model Jupiter instead. However, in “Jupiter V” there is another clue because the space craft in that story, The Arnold Toynbee, does go to a moon around Jupiter. Why would Clarke name the ship the Arnold Toynbee unless he, too, believed in his ideas?

THE TILERS AND THEIR MOTIVE

Each tile has a smaller side text attached and eludes to a grand conspiracy between the media, our government and the U.S.S.R. Immediately one would think that they are merely a group of conspiracy theorists, yet, that is not the main purpose of the message. The quatrain is the main message, the sub text is warning others to be wary of the media, and make more tiles. Over the years it is clear that other Tilers have joined the movement because the styles have changed, and we have exceeded the life span of the one person, I believe, was responsible for beginning the movement, but we’ll talk about that shortly.

No one person has claimed responsibility for the tiles, however there was a group called the Minority Association which had connections to the message and philosophy of the tiles. There are three suspects uncovered who would have the intellect, means and motive for trying to spread this message:

1) James Morasco – A carpenter from Philadelphia who had a beef with the local media mogul John Knight, and had a fatal disease.

2) Severino Verna – A blue-collar worker from Philadelphia whose family owns a funeral home. He was also known to be extremely intelligent and kept dead pigeons so that he might be able to bring them back to life one day.

3) Railroad Joe – A rail worker who worked lines that ran near areas where tiles were found.

But the fact of the matter is that their identity was never meant to be discovered, and most likely never will. The message is not about a person, it is about the message itself. This group of Tilers, the Minority Association, saw something that today we still do not see. And this is the core of my conclusion.

MY CONCLUSIONS

I believe that the person who began the tiling and came up with the original idea was James Morasco. He mentions in a tile that he had a fatal disease. We know that James Morasco had his voice box removed, mostly likely due to cancer. He was faced with his own mortality, yet, I believe it was more than his own mortality he was concerned with. The media do control the message, and did even more so back in the days of the Cold War. But I believe that his original hypothesis was that we are killing our civilization. This is another Toynbee idea. “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” If we are killing our planet, we are committing suicide.

Jupiter has many moons, and I believe that the Tilers believe that we need to colonize those moons to save our own world from extinction. I interpret “Resurrect Dead” as resurrecting our dying civilizations, but learning from what we did wrong. I know there are many people who want to turn a blind eye to the fact that our climate is changing. I am a data geek, and though I don’t have all the data NOAA and other organizations have, I can see for myself that the climate has changed in my short 44 years on this planet. I am addicted to the weather, and process roadway weather in my data experiments. Things are not as they should be.

This is further exacerbated by the Solar Maximum, which happens every twelve years. This is a time when our sun is most active and produces massive solar flares and coronal mass ejections. This is to say that the sun has an eruption, like a million nuclear weapons going off all at once, then it shoots the debris in the direction of the blast. This is what causes the Aurora at the poles. And in the beauty of the Auroras is hidden a destructive force — Electro Magnetic Pulses. While this is not directly harmful to humans, a large enough CME could wipe out ALL of our electronics. A single burp from the sun could send us back into the dark ages. Billions of people would die over the course of days.

I am not predicting the end of the world, because it is inevitable. in 4 billion years our planet will be consumed when the sun expands to a Red Giant. Our planet will be nothing more than a cinder floating around a dying sun. This is the cycle of our universe. But, this effect would Jupiter a perfect candidate to retreat to. There are so many moons, and there is water on some of them as recent probes have discovered, and scientists discovered in the 1970’s before the Voyager probes.

We are on a collision course with disaster if we continue to treat our planet this way. Our Tilers know this, and they know that the media controls the message. Any information that could trigger mass hysteria is suppressed. One man’s plight has turned into a message that should not be ignored, nor be taken as the ravings of a madman.

And finally, we consider the film 2001, which is about a the stages of our evolution, and ultimate redemption. It reminds us that we should not rely on technology for everything, embodied by HAL. It reminds us that violence is never the answer. It reminds us that all things in the universe is a cycle and we must forage ahead seeking new ways to ensure that we, our civilization, does not commit suicide for being short-sighted. Kubrick believed this. Clarke believed this. And Arnold Toynbee believed this. If you look at the chronological events that happened in the year 2001, you can see that this movie is semi-prophetic, but that is something you need to research.

What does it all mean? It means that if we must plan to colonize other worlds to ensure that our species survives. We must learn that the wars we have fought have been needless. We fight over dirt. We fight over religion. We fight over material things. It is all summed up in Toynbee’s title, life is all about “experiences” and learning from our history. We have learned from our history in all the wrong ways. We have learned how to be more efficient at dealing death. We have learned how to rape our planet to the point of extinction. But we have not learned that we cannot stay on this planet forever.

I have said a great deal of things. I respect Toynbee, Kubrick, Clarke and the Tilers. They are trying to tell you something, but we are not listening. My friends, the universe is a waking dream. Each of us has the ability to force the powers that be to fix the problems. Force them to see that our planet, our civilization is dying. Awaken your weirdness and change the world.

So I will leave you tonight with a message from the Tilers, hidden in the subtext. “You must make + glue the tiles! You!!!”

Toynbee tile photographed a block or so from the White House by User:Erifnam in 2002. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today I wanted to tell you about a new project I am working on. This is something that I have given a great deal of thought to, and I have been asked by my friends and fans to discuss the philosophy behind my Waking Dream series.

The philosophy behind the Waking Dream is much more than a simple dark fantasy adventure story. I truly believe that we all have the ability to change the course of our reality. Dreamers are the ones who have that ability, and anyone can become a Dreamer, you just have to learn how to do so.

So, in response to all these questions from interviews, friends and fans, I am beginning a new project to be released at about the same time as the next book in the series, The Unkindness. This book will be called The Little Book of Dreams – Libellus Somnium, and it will be a non-fiction view of a new philosophy I have formulated called Mism, the Merger of all Isms. (Taoism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Communism, you get the idea). You can read the abstract at this link, and my view on creation. This is only the beginning.

The book is targeted to those who want to lead a more peaceful and meaningful existence. This is not to say that I have perfected my implementation of Mism in my life, but that is because we are not, and cannot, be perfect. Perfection is a myth, and a fruitless pursuit. We will always be learning, experiencing and evolving. But, I can say with profound certainty that we are eternal spirits. The body you inhabit now is just a vehicle. It allows you to experience the world, and experience the universe. When it is broken, you fix it. When it completely fails, you abandon it and get a new one to continue your journey.

Many people believe that there must be some specific purpose to life. There is and there isn’t. You create your purpose based on what you want to experience. The only innate purpose to life is to live and create the universe. We are all responsible for taking care of ourselves and one another, because we share a Oneness with each other. We all affect one another, therefore we are inexorably linked. My action causes your reaction. Reading this article will invoke thought, negative or positive, and that demonstrates the connection between us.

I always start off my blog posts calling you Dreamers, because those who read my blog are Dreamers, or want to be. And the more people I draw in, the more we can share intellectual discourse on how best to reshape our world. So writing The Little Book of Dreams will simply be a compilation of all that I have learned and infused into my life, as well as the stories and novels that make up the Waking Dream Universe.

I also believe in the Weirdness. That may sound strange to you, because it is just my word for magic. Do I believe that magic exists? Not in the Tolkien way, such as fireballs, wizards and dragons. I believe that each of us possesses an inherent ability that super-cedes conventional physics and what we perceive as impossible. I have seen and experienced many of these abilities in other people. Nothing is impossible — somethings just may not be probable, as we have learned through quantum mechanics.

At the core of Mism, we must understand that to completely understand ourselves and the universe, we must merge all of our disparate ideas into a cohesive framework that allows science and religion to coexist and explain each other. We would remove the distinction between the two and label it a philosophy of life. A Philosophy of Everything, if you will.

Now, you are probably asking yourself, who is this guy to tell me anything? The answer to that is very simple, I am the sum of everything everyone living and dead has taught me. And you are the sum of the same. I did not create this by myself, all of you have contributed to this idea, in one way or another.

Finally, you are probably asking, why would I bother to write this all down. And you are free to agree or disagree with me. But I am writing this down, because it takes just one thought to make a change. Look around you, look at the state of the world. Is this the ideal world you want to live in? Do you feel that the right decisions are being made? Do you have fear for the future? Are you concerned about what we are leaving our children? Have you lost your way? Do you know what you want out of your life?

I am going to give you my perspective on what truly matters, and hopefully in the process, I will learn more about you, so that I can improve myself as a person, and in turn make the world a better place for us all.

Have a wonderful day, and I thank you for listening to me babble, as always.

Today I am going to start a whole new series of blog posts. I am going to predicate this all by saying these are my views on existence, and they are not intended to insult or challenge other people’s views or belief systems. But I do challenge you to look at your beliefs, and the beliefs of others to see that there are commonalities we all share, and there is an answer that would bring complete and total world peace.

I have thought on this for a very long time, especially given the state of the world today. And through writing my series, The Waking Dream, I’ve come to some philosophical assumptions, which I believe are fact. As such, I am sharing these views with you, for an open and honest debate about the nature of consciousness. Today we will start with the Origin of the Universe.

For lack of a better word, I am calling this new philosophy, Mism (Merger of all isms) — merging all philosophy, science and religion in one cogent framework for examining the role of consciousness in the creation and maintenance of the universe. We must accept the logical argument that in order for we, as humans, to form a complete and consistent philosophy of existence, we must accept that our views on science, religion and philosophy are flawed and splintered. This statement is the very reason we need one overarching framework with which we can examine The Self. These three areas have caused great strife throughout history due to the fact that we cannot come to a single conclusion on the origin of the universe and our role within it. This series of posts will attempt to find the commonalities that we can all agree on, and hopefully present a complete and cogent framework to look at ourselves and the universe from a unified perspective. And ultimately prove, we are all One and we are all God.

Origin of the Universe

Before we begin, I will state that there are three general groups of belief systems I will be merging in this new philosophy — the primary “isms”. Theists who believe in a Deity in some form. Atheists who do not believe in any form of a Deity. And finally Agnostics who believe that there is not enough evidence to prove or disprove the existence of a Deity. In a later post, I will define a fourth group, which I will call Dichotomists, one who believes in a Deity who created the “seed” for our universe, and God who molds the universe — the Architect and the Engineer Dichotomy.

The long-standing argument between science and religion is the origin, or creation, of the universe. We have creationism which argues that a Deity created the universe and everything therein. And we have the Big Bang Theory which posits the universe exploded from a primordial singularity and within a few minutes hydrogen atoms began to form, thus enabling the coalescence of stars, and later the formation of planets and finally, life.

Both of these ideas can coexist within the framework of Mism. If we adopt a tenet from Deism and the concept of the Unmoved Mover presented in Aristotle’sThe Metaphysics, we can assert that something sparked existence as we know it. Deism asserts that a Deity created the universe and set the natural laws, yet does not interfere with the universe. The Unmoved Mover theory supports the Big Bang in that something caused all motion in the universe, such as a quantum disturbance, defined by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

We know that stars are composed of hydrogen and through the process of fusion, create the ever heavier elements. There are many classifications of stars and each produces different sequences of elements through their fusion cycles. Other elements are created through the death of the star, which begins with the fusion of Iron. A star, such as ours, fuses in this sequence: Hydrogen => Helium => Carbon => Neon => Oxygen => Silicon => Iron. When a star has nothing left to fuse, it explodes in a nova, or supernova, and distributes these elements throughout the universe in all directions, as well as creates other elements in the intense heat of the explosion.

It is agreed upon that there are six elements, all of which created through star fusion and novae, that are most essential for life, as we presently know it, to exist. They are: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus.

Following this, we can deduce the following irrefutable syllogism:

Stellar effects create all elements which are matter.
Elements created through stellar effects make life possible.
Therefore life is dependent on stellar effects.

I make this assertion as the basis to show that matter is created by stars and not by a Deity. The very basis of Mism is that the natural laws were encoded in the primordial seed by an immortal we cannot begin to understand, nor should we. This is mirrored in everyday life — an egg, a seed, plans for a building and DNA. All things need a plan to begin, and the only role the Deity serves is to create the plan — plant the seed. But, the Deity is not God as we know it. We will discuss God in a future post.

The Big Bang Theory is correct for the most part, except for one small correction I will make. The universe did begin with a massive expansion from a single seed, but the “quantum disturbance”, if you will, was the first thought — the Big Thought Theory. Consciousness is the reason for the universe to exist, it is not a side effect of the universe. Consciousness is the universe and the universe is consciousness. And because the universe is a closed system, the first thought must have come from within the universe and not from beyond the boundaries of the universe.

Building on the Big Thought Theory, the Initial Singularity contained all matter and space-time at one single point — one-dimensional. This is to say that all things in the singularity were One and unified via infinite gravity. And though we perceive the universe as a vast, disparate collection of planets, stars and galaxies, they are all still connected via gravity. This we know to be an irrefutable truth.

If we can accept that we are all connected by gravity, then the next leap is to accept that we are still One with each other. It is time that distorts our perception of Oneness. We are every single particle at every moment in space-time simultaneous. Gravity is the connection that binds us even now. It is the fundamental order that brings all things back to its initial state of Oneness, once we have come to understand ourselves and the universe. This is why we have not found the elusive graviton. It simply does not exist. Gravity’s pull reminds us of our connection.

One now must ask what causes Chaos and the answer is very simple — consciousness creates chaos and chaos is creation. If we all possess consciousness, then it is we who create chaos. We mold the universe to our desires, and gravity acts in the absence of conscious thought. This understanding is the core of Mism. The answer to all of our questions about why we are here is very simple, we are here because we wish to be here. The universe exists because we wish it to exist. We think, therefore we are.

Conclusion

The universe is the product of two major events. The first is the planting of the seed by an entity we cannot and need not understand. The second, thought was the catalyst for the creation of the universe. There is no purpose for a universe without an observer. Why would an artist paint a painting if no one will ever look at it? I am everyone one of you, and you are all me.

I open this, and all future posts to criticism and debate. This post is one of many. And the dialogue begins now. Challenge me!

Let’s awaken our weirdness, our special facet of being, and change the world for the better.

She absolutely got what I was trying to relay in my work, and that gives me hope that the book will start to catch on. Yes, it is a quick read. I wanted to introduce the world before getting into the details. This first book is meant to tease you, because I am going to perform a trick on you, the reader. I say to you that I am going to make a rabbit vanish into the hat, but at the end, I’ll do much more than make him return again. Your mind will be left wondering, forced to look into yourself and find your own magic.

Here is an excerpt:

“There’s a bit of Poe and quite a bit of Lovecraft about the thing. A compelling plot, multiple inventive characters and situations and some rather gross moments (in a good way) made this one a winner. I’d definitely recommend it to fans of dark fantasy.

Devlin itself put me in mind of a grown up version of Hogsmeade. Just because you didn’t get your letter from Hogwarts doesn’t mean you can’t be Awakened to your particular ability–that can happen at any time in your life. So take heart!

The events of the book take place in the autumn and there’s magic and the lifting of the veil in a very big way so it’s the perfect book for this time of year.” – V.L. Craven

But wait, there’s more! Starting next week, I will start posting a series of articles about the philosophy behind the Waking Dream, but it much more than that. I am going to create a framework that will merge science and religion, creating a new philosophical framework, and drawing from the work of Dr. Erik Andrulis‘, of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, scientifically irrefutable “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life” — which I urge you to read, both his theory and his blog. I have entitled this new philosophy as Mism, the Merging of all isms.

And just one more thing, my book will be reviewed and I will be interviewed on Elaine Charles’ radio show about the Waking Dream and Devlin the weekend of October 27. Details will come as to times and what local station you can hear it, and links to the podcast.

Thank you all for helping me write this book, and make the Waking Dream a success. It is for you, because we need a little magic and hope in this world gone awry.

With the release of my book, Devlin, I wanted to tell you a little more about it to give you an idea of what you are in for.

If you happen to be traveling in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, north of Charlottesville, you may be strangely dawn to a tiny, hidden town, nestled far away from the bustle of the modern world. Its cobbled streets are lined with an eclectic collection of homes and buildings, adding to the uniqueness of the town itself. From the quaint shops that line Rowe Street, to the Gothic Church of St. Michael, to the Autumn House Bed and Breakfast, Devlin is picturesque, peaceful and pastoral.

It has been hidden away from the world for over two centuries, and when I say hidden, I mean that only certain people can find it, and only if the town wants to be found. Life has continued this way for the people of Devlin since the late 1700s, living self-sufficiently in peace and harmony, but that is about to change.

Beginning this Autumn, the people of Devlin uncover the truth behind the establishment of their town and discover an ancient plot that has spanned centuries, threatening the very existence of their town and the rest of the world. And as the town performs their yearly Halloween ritual, the world will never be the same.

Devlin is much more than dark fantasy. It has elements of horror, paranormal, supernatural, and metaphysical. Devlin has something for everyone. I am an avid gamer; console, PC and role-play. The Waking Dream is nothing more than an exploration of our reality as a cosmic game. You can read more about the Waking Dream Universe in the following posts.

In all the bustle of my daily life, I wanted to take a moment to remember my Grandmother, Mary Pennisi. It was just two years ago that we lost her, and her birthday is just a few weeks away.

My grandmother was born in 1919 and she died in 2011. And though its been two years since her passing, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I could just see her once more.

She was much more than a grandmother to me. Being from a big Italian family, she was the matriarch of her children and grandchildren. She possessed wisdom that one could never gain from college or formal education. She lived through the Great Depression, and she embodied everything that Rosie the Riveter stood for. “We Can Do It!”. And that is how she lived her life.

When my grandfather, Frederick, was diagnosed with brain cancer, she did not give up as most would. She took care of him in the home they built together as poor Italian/Sicilian immigrants, despite his ever worsening condition. She refused to put him in a home, determined to care for him by herself, rather than allow him to be away from his family and friends. She cared for him in their house until his passing in 1995. And she stayed there with all those memories until she was unable to live with her own growing dementia, when it was her daughter’s turn, my Aunt Maryann, to take care of her.

My grandmother’s funeral taught me many things. The most important is that I should never give a eulogy. I was barely into the first two lines of it, when both myself and my cousin Kelly began to cry uncontrollably. It took us 20 minutes to get through a eulogy that should have lasted less than 10 minutes.

She taught us all so much during her 92 years. She taught us how to be strong, she taught us to follow our dreams, and she taught us that family is always the most important thing. She taught us all the things we never would have learned in school, because she put value on family greater than most people did.

I just wanted everyone to know that she is with me in this time of my greatest success, and she has always been there in my times of sorrow. And as her birthday approaches, I wanted to make sure that she’s never forgotten. Though I mourn her death every day, I know we will be together at some other place and time, and we’ll laugh and talk as we used to, when I was just a boy.

I get asked on many occasions why I’ve spent so much time working on this series before I wrote the book. Part of it was procrastination, but the biggest reason was the allegory behind the Waking Dream.

When I was a kid, I was very much enamored by H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. The idea of a writer creating a framework for other writers to contribute to was fascinating to me. And since the story “The Call of Cthulhu” was released in 1926, scores of renowned authors have taken their turn to try to rouse the Ancient Ones from their slumber.

I initially came up with the idea for the Waking Dream in 1995 as a Dungeons and Dragons style role-playing game. It was first premiered on Internet Relay Chat, where I had over 100 people playing at any given time. But as I began to write these elaborate story lines for others to interact with, it occurred to me that it would be more useful to write stories and novels, rather than a bunch of rules and dice play. The Waking Dream began to evolve.

I stepped away from the online role-play world and began to do serious research on how to make the Waking Dream a framework. But along the way, it started to become something much more than that. It started to become a philosophical debate on the nature of existence – a subject that has haunted me my entire adult life. I have for a long time stopped reading fiction, and jumped headlong into physics, cosmology, religion, philosophy, mathematics and metaphysics. And along the way, I created an entire universe populated by Dreamers, Sleepers and Immortals and solved — in my mind — the answers to our universe.

It does not matter really what comprises the universe, how it came to be, or where it will go from here. What does matter is the voyage and exploration of the self and understanding that we are all connected at a fundamental level, and the universe is our playground. We have gone about our search for the answer in the wrong way. Rather than trying to understand our consciousness and our spirit, we’ve leaped into the abyss, searching for answers in the stars — but the answer is in each and every one of us.

The Waking Dream books and stories and framework are to give us a way to be children again, when we looked at everything with wonder. Magic and Monsters are everywhere, we’ve just chosen not to see them in the same way we once did. We’ve allowed what we call the “common reality” — what the majority believes to be true — to make us blind to the true nature of the universe and thus, ourselves.

For me, the Waking Dream is not about making money, it’s about throwing a new idea out on the table for everyone to see. And in turn, I expect others to take up the mantle and submit their own stories about the Waking Dream. Because, in the Waking Dream anything is possible. And if we all take a moment to realize the Dream as something wonderful, it will be wonderful. But at the moment, we are creating a nightmare.

Waking Dream: Devlin is just the first of many novels to come. If you are looking to escape for just a little while, and you believe in any of the things I have said, I believe you will enjoy walking with me in the Waking Dream.

Today, as promised, we are going to explore the concepts of the Weird and Weirdness which is borrowed from the concept Quantum Weirdness, or what Einstein called Spooky Action at a Distance. There is one such known phenomenon that I discussed in a previous post called Quantum Entanglement, which is an unexplained mystery where by two particles can be created and sent across the vast distance of our universe, and if you change the spin of one particle, the other one instantaneously changes its spin. This, my friends, is the very basis for all of my theories behind the Waking Dream, the fundamental Oneness of all things in the universe, and the argument for magic, which I simple call Weirdness.

I have taken liberty through my own studies and thought exercises to conclude that Dark Energy is the basis for this weird behavior of our universe. In my theory, Dark Energy is all information stored since the beginning of our universe, which is why it constitutes a whopping 68.3% of our universe — and it continues to grow as the expansion of the universe demonstrates.

In a paper published by my friend Erik Andrulis, “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life.” he posits arguments which could further the idea of this interconnectedness of our universe and all of the fundamental particles. I highly recommend that you give it a read and come to your own conclusions. It is time to go back to the drawing board and look at our wonderfully amazing universe from a different perspective.

The Way of the Weird

The Weird

All things are created from what I call The Weird, it is an energy source that allows matter to be created and manipulated. It exists in a place between our reality, which I have called the Spaces Between. And in the bosom of the Weird all consciousness is created. It is from this Weird that Dreamers and Immortals are able to manipulate the Waking Dream. The ability to manipulate comes from the information and experiences we encounter in our day-to-day lives, forever recorded within the Spaces Between, allowing us to do amazing things. Through this increased understanding of our universe, we are able to make things better — such as moving from mud huts, to homes, to skyscrapers. All of this is inherently magical unto itself, however we have allowed it to simply become a mundane aspect of life. The fact that you can move a glass from the table to your mouth, then back again, is in of itself Weird. And we take it for granted.

In the Waking Dream, Dreamers and Immortals are able to tap into this eternal knowledge and there by manipulate the Dream, using an ability called Weirdness. But rather than just using mundane actions to manipulate the Waking Dream, they are able to return magic to the world, both good and evil.

The Weirdness

Weirdness is magic of the Waking Dream. It is the ability to manipulate things in a supernatural sense. This gift comes from the knowledge that the universe IS a Waking Dream, and is not available to anyone who is not a Dreamer or an Immortal. Being a Dreamer requires one to accept the fundamental principle that the universe is a Waking Dream and that everything within it is connected. It is this interconnectedness that allows the Dream to be manipulated. If you are connected to everything everywhere in the universe, then you can manipulate it through this connection.

Weirdness is like an electrical current that transmits your will to other connected objects, allowing one to act upon it. We do this every day in a physical sense, but there are very few who have recognized that they can do this at the quantum level. All particles only exist as matter when they are required to interact, this is what we have learned through the wave/particle duality phenomenon. An electron, for instance, is not always there. It has a probability to be anywhere in the universe, though the probability lessens the further due to its relative position in the current moment. It also exhibits very strange properties which we still do not understand, but I will have to explain this more with an analogy.

Every single atom in your body is made of a nucleus which consists of protons and neutrons. And orbiting this nucleus, are one or more electrons. Now, here is Weirdness number one about the atom — it is mostly empty space. If we were to compare a solar system to an atom, putting them on a similar scale, with the sun acting as the nucleus, and the planets are the electrons, the distances between the nucleus and the electrons would have just as vast distances as the planets do with the sun. Hence it is mostly empty space between in each and every one of the billions of atoms that make up just your body.

The second Weirdness about the atom, is that the electrons move in completely unexplained ways from one orbit to the next. They simply pop out of existence and appear in another orbit in the atom. It is important to understand this point, they are there one moment, then somewhere else the next, with no time in between. Taking our planet analogy, this would be like Mars and Earth instantaneously switching places in their orbits around the sun. Earth and Mars would vanish simultaneously and reappear instantaneously in their different orbits.

The Weirdness ability in the Waking Dream uses these strange mysteries forces to cause things to be changed or come into creation. This is possible because in the Weird all experience exists, and we all know this, but we have chosen to forget it. But like any street magician, one must learn to fool the observer after much trial and error, until they perfect their trick. This is why a Dreamer is born without knowledge of their inherent Weirdness, and they must find their own unique way to express it, as I explain in my previous post.

Conclusion

This is a great deal of information for one to process, but there are many books and theories the both support and invalidate what I have said. This cancellation, thrusts my assertions into the realm of philosophical debate. It can only be tested one way, one must believe it, and simply do it.

Over the course of my life, I have met people with very strange abilities that I would absolutely call Weirdness. I have met charlatan magicians and fortune-tellers, but I have also met people who have been able to tell things or see things that they could not possible have known or observed in 10 minutes. Magic still exists, as any child will tell you. Perhaps it is time to look at the world around you and see it as a child would, full of wonder and awe and unfettered beliefs. It is only then that you an Awaken your Weirdness and change the world to be what it has the potential to be.

Next time, we will explore the realms of the Waking Dream Universe — The Waking Dream, the Sleeping Dream, and the Spaces Between.

In my last post we discussed the concepts of Immortality in the Waking Dream Universe. Today we are going to discuss the two other types of beings in the Waking Dream Universe — Dreamers and Sleepers.

But before we begin, I wanted to clarify that a Planet-Bound Immortal was once a Dreamer, and it is through the process of Awakening and Enlightenment that a Dreamer becomes an Immortal.

There is a two tiered allegorical argument when we speak of Dreamers and Sleepers. Dreamers, and Immortals, are the Architects of the Waking Dream. They are also those who will not sit idly by and allow their lives to be affected by others. They are people from all walks of life, from white-collar to blue-collar. Sleepers on the other hand, are the engineers or worker bees. They are people who do not accept that they have control over their life and look to the Dreamers to lead them. This is not meant as a derogatory statement, it is a simple observation. In one sense, Dreamers are the observer, collectively, in a solipsistic world, where the Sleepers do not really exist other than to be actors in the Dreamer/Immortal play.

Of Sleepers and Dreamers

Sleepers

In the Waking Dream, Sleepers can best be thought of as automatons, or robots. They are the vessel through which Dreamers can occupy the Waking Dream. They are born, live their lives according to the design of the Dreamers and Immortals. They are a function of the grand algorithm created at the beginning of the universe, as designed by the Creator. Their main purposes are to make the world for the Dreamers to live in, and serve as bodies for the Dreamers to interact with the physical reality. As mentioned in my first post in the series, when a Dreamer dies, they return to the Spaces Between, which can be compared to the Afterlife, or what I like to call, the InBetweenLife. It is the realm of the Weird, and it is from there that all consciousness emanates.

One point that needs to be made is that any living thing is a Dreamer, so it is not limited to humans. It may be the desire of a Dreamer to inhabit an animal, or a tree, because the Waking Dream is about experiencing the universe. We created the Waking Dream to explore every aspect of the universe, because it is a gift to have consciousness, and a gift to have such an amazingly diverse reality to explore.

Dreamers

Dreamers, at the base level, are pure consciousness. When they are not inhabiting a Sleeper and affecting the Waking Dream, they can peer into the life of any Sleeper and determine whether they wish to inhabit them. They also, for a limited time, can enter the Waking Dream, in an incorporeal form. Both Sleepers and corporeal Dreamers, can sometimes see them in these ghostly forms, which is where ghost sightings come from. Sometimes, they do forget that they are not in a body, and will return to a place they died again and again, depending on the manner of their death. Particularly violent deaths can cause a Dreamer to temporarily get stuck in a pattern, and this is what constitutes a haunting.

When a Dreamer enters the body of a Sleeper, at any stage of the Sleeper’s life, they take on the memories and persona of that Dreamer, much like when one chooses a character in a game. They forget all their past lives and memories, and the fact that they are a Dreamer. This is when they begin the quest to Awaken and use their Weirdness to affect the Waking Dream. One can think of this as learning how to operate a new vehicle. Once the Dreamer has full control of the vehicle, and knows its limitations, both physically, mentally and socially, the Dreamer can then undergo the process of Awakening, which happens differently for everyone. It is usually brought on by trauma of some variety, like someone slapping you in the face saying “Wake up!”.

Dreamers are connected to the Spaces Between by the Somnambula, or what used to be called the Silver Cord. This is how they are able to channel the energy, or Weirdness, to affect the Waking Dream. This also accounts for why Dreamers experience deja vu, as sometimes a location, conversation or experience, triggers a memory stored in the Weird.

All Dreamers exert their will on the Waking Dream in different ways, but they are usually subtle, as it takes a great deal of energy to create more dramatic effects, such as throwing a fireball at someone, which is possible, but usually only by Immortals who have a greater command of their Weirdness. Dreamers usually exert their Weirdness through either mundane abilities such as charisma to become a leader, or extraordinary creative abilities such as musicians, artists or writers. The more famous a Dreamer is usually tied to their Weirdness.

Other Dreamers exert their will in supernatural ways, such as practicing ritualistic magic, such as alchemy, Wicca, witchcraft or illusions. Others have abilities such as empathy, telepathy, telekinesis, or second sight. But there are many more ways in which Dreamers can exert their Weirdness.

Conclusion

In closing, I would like to propose to you a personal experiment. While I am presenting these ideas of the Waking Dream as fiction, there are some truths woven within this view of the universe as a Waking Dream. I tend to think that the only people who read my blog are Dreamers. They are people seeking others to share their thoughts, and learn from one another. They want to believe that they have greater control of their life and environment, yet they lack the solidarity from others with the same thoughts. This can be seen with the development of religion. Each religion has common beliefs among all of its members so that their beliefs become more real to the collective.

Take a look at your life, and see if you have your own Weirdness. Is it possible that all of the universe is really not what we think it is? Is it possible we are responsible for everything that happens on our planet on every level? The universe is inherently weird in the way that it operates. We still have not come to any conclusive evidence than anything we see is actually there. There is no way to know, and that, my friends, makes life all the more mysterious, wonderful and exciting to explore. If we have limits, it is because we have imposed those limits upon ourselves.